The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of Europe

by Louis Paul Bénézet

Every Greek hates the Turks and looks forward to the time when no man of Greek descent shall be subject to their cruel rule. You have been told how the Russians have looked forward to the day when Saint Sophia, the great mosque of the Turks, shall once more become a Christian cathedral. In the same way the Greeks have passionately desired to see Constantinople, which was for over a thousand years the capital of their empire, freed from the control of the Turk. Little by little, from the time when the Greeks first won their independence from Turkey in 1829, the boundary of their kingdom has been pushed northward, freeing more and more of their people from the rule of the Ottomans. Venizelos, aiming to include in the kingdom of Greece as many as possible of the people of Greek blood, was scheming night and day for the overthrow of the Turkish power in Europe. You have been told how the Russian diplomats astonished the world by inducing Bulgaria to unite with the Greeks and the Serbs, two nations for whom she had no love, in an alliance against the Turks. Many people felt that this combination would never have been possible without the far-seeing wisdom of of Venizelos. In fact, some historians give him the credit of first planning the alliance.

His greatest trouble was with his own countrymen. The Greeks, as you have been told, have always claimed Macedonia as part of their country, whereas, in truth, there are more Bulgarians than Greeks among its inhabitants. Venizelos, having agreed before the attack on Turkey that the greater part of Macedonia should be given to Bulgaria, had hard work after the victory in convincing his countrymen that this was fair. In fact, the claims of the three allies to this district proved the one weak spot in the combination. The occupation of this country by Greeks and Serbs in the course of the first war against Turkey, while the Bulgarians were defeating the main Turkish army just northwest of Constantinople, brought on the second war. Bulgaria was not willing to give up Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, and her troops made a treacherous attack on her former allies (June, 1913) which brought on the declarations of war referred to.

At the close of the second war, when Bulgaria, attacked by five nations at once, had to make peace as best she could, the Greeks took advantage of her by insisting on taking, not only Salonika but also Kavala, which by all rights should have gone to the Bulgars. Venizelos was willing to be generous to Bulgaria, but the Greeks had had their heads turned by the extraordinary successes of their armies over the Turks and Bulgarians and as a result insisted upon being greedy when it came to a division of the conquered lands.

Let us return now to events in Greece after the world war had begun: In March, 1915, when the great fleets of France and England made their violent attack on the forts of the Dardanelles, intending to break through and bombard Constantinople, Venizelos was eager to have Greece join the conflict against the Turks. He felt sure that Turkey, in the end, would lose the war and that her territory in Europe would be divided up among the conquering nations. He wanted to get for Greece the shores of the Dardanelles and the coast of Asia Minor, where a great majority of the inhabitants were people of Greek blood. The king of Greece, Constantine, as has been explained, is a brother-in-law of the German Kaiser and has always been friendly to Germany. He and Venizelos had been good friends while both were working for the upbuilding of Greece, but a little incident happened shortly after the Balkan wars which led to a coolness between them.

King Constantine, while on a visit to Berlin, stood up at a banquet and told the Kaiser and the German generals that the fine work of the Greek soldiers in the two wars just fought had been due to help which he had received from German military men. This statement angered the French very much, for you will remember that it was French generals who had trained the Greek army officers. Venizelos, very shortly after this, made a trip to Paris and there publicly stated that all credit for the fine condition of the Greek army was due to the Frenchmen who had trained its officers before the war of 1912. This was a direct “slap in the face” of the king but it was the truth and everyone in Greece knew it. From this time on it was evident to everybody that Venizelos was friendly to the French and English, while the King was pro-German.

Accordingly, in March, 1915, when Venizelos urged the Greek government to join the war on Turkey, the king refused to give the order. Venizelos, who was prime minister, straightway resigned, broke up the parliament, and ordered a general election. This put the case squarely up to the people of Greece and they answered by electing to the Greek parliament one hundred eighty men friendly to Venizelos and the Triple Entente as against one hundred forty who were opposed to entering the war.

Venizelos, once more prime minister as a result of this election, ordered the Greek army to be mobilized. At this time the fear was that Bulgaria, in revenge for 1913, would join the war on the side of the Germans and Turks and attack Greece in the rear. In order to keep peace with Bulgaria Venizelos was willing to give to her the port of Kavala, which Greece had cheated her out of at the close of the second Balkan war. He felt that his country would gain so much by annexing Greek territory now under the rule of the Turks that she could afford to give up this seaport, whose population was largely Bulgarian. Constantine opposed this, however, and the majority of the Greeks, not being as far-sighted as their prime minister, backed the king. When the attack by the Central Powers on Serbia took place, as has been told, Venizelos a second time tried to get the Greek government to join the war on the side of France and England. He said plainly to the king that the treaty between Greece and Serbia was not a “scrap of paper” as the German Chancellor had called the treaty with Belgium, but a solemn promise entered into by both sides with a full understanding of what it meant. The king, on the other hand, insisted that the treaty had to do with Bulgaria alone and that it was not intended to drag Greece into a general European war. As a result, he dismissed Venizelos a second time, in spite of the fact that twice, by their votes, the Greeks had shown that they approved of his policy.

Now Greece is a limited monarchy. By the terms of the constitution the king must obey the will of the people as shown by the votes of a majority of the members of parliament. In spite of the vote of parliament the king refused to stand by the Serbian treaty. From this time on he was violating the law of his country and ruling as a czar instead of a monarch with very little power, as the Greek constitution had made him.

Things went from bad to worse. In the meantime the French and English had landed at Salonika in order to rush to the aid of the hard-pressed Serbs. You have already been told how Venizelos arranged this. Their aid, however, had come too late. Before they could reach the gallant little Serbian army it had been crushed between the Austrians and Germans on one side and the Bulgarians on the other, and its survivors had fled across the mountains to the coast of Albania. The French and English detachments were not strong enough to stand against the victorious armies of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria. They began to retreat through southern Serbia. King Constantine notified the Allied governments that if these troops retreated upon Greek soil he would send his army to surround them and hold them as prisoners for the rest of the war. France and England replied by notifying him that if he did this they would blockade the ports of Greece and prevent any ships from entering her harbors. This act on the part of France and England, while it seemed necessary, nevertheless angered the proud Greeks and strengthened the pro-German party in Athens. The king took advantage of this feeling to appoint a number of pro-Germans to important positions in the government. Constantine allowed German submarines to use certain ports in Greece as bases of supply from which they got their oil and provisions. The Greek army was still mobilized, and the small force of French and English, which had retreated to Salonika, were afraid that at any moment they might receive a stab in the back by order of the Greek king.

In May, 1916, the Germans and Bulgarians crossed the Greek frontier and demanded the surrender of several Greek forts. When the commander of one of them proposed to fight, the German general told him to call up his government at Athens over the long distance telephone. He did so and was ordered to give up the fort peaceably to the invaders. We have already seen what the answer of the Belgians had been on a like occasion. To be sure, the French and English were already occupying Greek soil, but they had come there under permission of the prime minister of Greece to do a thing which Greece herself had solemnly promised that she would do, namely, to defend Serbia from the Bulgars.